Christine's walking & birds blog

Our last pelagic of the year gave us the chance to travel once more on the old ferry (new one in for its service) - and we were bowled over by the sense of space on the open decks and the intimacy with the sea. From the side, you can lean on the rail and look straight down into the water or forward along the ship, whereas on the new ferry there is an extra safety rail above the main one (awkward for photographs sometimes) and your view ahead from the side is obstructed by the lifeboat structure (yeah, a bit necessary, I know).

Meanwhile the car deck doesn't extend out into the open at the back, so you're closer to the wake - and you don't have to put up with all the bibbing and honking of vehicle alarm systems which drivers just don't bother to turn off.

 First snow......

.....on the Beinn Dearg group, south of Loch Broom. We sat outside the Ferry Boat Inn with beer and salted nuts and this nice view. But although we continued our old lockdown walk through the (now closed and empty) camp-site, round the spit, and along the river paths, we saw very few birds. Groups of Eider and wigeon on the loch were the highlight.

Blue skies, sunshine, and a stiff breeze saw us off from Ullapool on our latest pelagic. A white-tailed sea eagle was spotted in powerful but rather ponderous flight among the outer Summer Isles. 

Beyond the Summer Isles the wind hit us properly and the sea became exciting - but it was impossible to hold bins and camera steady. A small bird was spotted fluttering in the ferry's wake, seemingly trying to land; it did eventually appear to succeed, flying above the vehicles in the open part of the car deck below us - but it flew out of our sight.  Two similar birds were then seen flying alongside - and these were almost certainly redwings; but we don't know what happened to them.

One particular area out in the Minch delivered several dark birds skimming low over the waves; I can't tell if any other species were present, but this seems to be a sooty shearwater. 

Once we'd left this interesting spot behind, Greger went down to have some lunch while I battled on in the wind, lurching from rail to rail as I scanned desperately with the bins; but I failed to see anything of note. After a short wait in the Stornoway terminal we re-embarked - and for once we didn't rush up to grab seats on the outer deck, but sat in the coffee lounge while I ate my lunch; I'd got cold on the outward trip and was feeling a bit wind-battered and light-headed. While we sat there, we heard a surprising announcement over the tannoy that we'd never heard before - reminding dog-owners not to take dogs into areas where people were eating, and not to let their dogs sit on seats. Good. 

The number of dogs on the ferry has risen dramatically, the boat sometimes resembling a sort of Crufts-on-sea. Later, Greger and I were standing by the litter bin when a woman came out from below with a small dog, stood by the bin - and watched it poo. This was right next to us. She cleaned it up with some paper (not completely satisfactorily, so that we avoided that spot afterwards) - and disappeared again below. It had to happen one day.  Surely dog owners know the timings of their pets' digestion and can delay feeding them until they're off the boat! We thought we'd seen everything on a previous trip, when a woman allowed an enormous dog to cock its leg and wee all over the same litter bin; she did pull it away eventually, but not before the wee had started to run across the deck. On that occasion, I warned Greger not to lean on the bin (he hadn't seen what happened) - and a woman sitting in the seats in front of us half-turned round and muttered something to the effect that the woman should have had wet-wipes with her; I didn't say anything, not sure if she was talking to me or to her husband. He didn't answer, however, and the next thing she said left me in no doubt that I was being told off: "You can't blame the dog!" after which she turned away with a sort of offended flounce. FFS! I'm not allowed to blame the dog - as though it's going to be upset if I do! It wasn't even her flaming dog. I wasn't even talking to her.

If you want to know the latest religion, just reverse the letters of god - and there you have what many people worship and idolise these days.

Anyway - back to the homeward trip. As we approached the open sea again I spotted a solitary puffin - a tardy puffin, surely. Fratercula tardica. We failed to spot any definite shearwaters but Greger pointed out a bird ahead of us, flying in towards the boat.

Well, obviously a skua - but not much else is obvious from these poor pics. If the first seems to show a full-chested bird, I think it also shows a head and bill that are too small for Pomarine - while the second picture appears to show the slimmer, more elegant profile of an Arctic skua.  I'll go with Arctic, but once again, I can't be sure. We also spotted a distant Bonxie. 

A slightly frustrating, but mostly entertaining trip!

I got out to Achnahaird fairly early, but the tide had already receded well down the beach. There was a sad sight on the saltmarsh beyond the dunes - a stranded guillemot.

I thought of my futile attempts to refloat the moribund guillemot in a fairly calm sea at Badentarbat last Sunday, and decided there was nothing I could do. The sea was quite a way away and was also rough. This bird, however, didn't look emaciated or weak - it was alert, and moving its head about. Even worse, I thought - I didn't want to injure a healthy bird by handling it wrongly, and I made a wide detour round it, wondering if it could hold out until the next high tide. I noted two golden plovers and an indeterminate goose and returned to the beach, walking down to the edge of the sea as dark rain clouds bunched over the horizon. Three oystercatchers were pecking about in the shallow waves. 

Something black and white flew down the beach and I couldn't believe it when I realised it was a guillemot! It flew low over sand and water and I just managed to grab an unzoomed shot as it crash-landed among the breakers. 

Was this the same bird? The rain began as I climbed the low cliffs from the beach and scanned the water. At first I could see only two razorbills - a bit too close to shore for my liking (we've seen a dead razorbill here before).

And then a shag surfaced and, just beyond it, a guillemot; I hoped it was "mine", and as the rain poured down even harder I covered up my optics and headed for the car. Along the road I pulled into a passing place and scanned the saltmarsh; to my relief, I couldn't see a guillemot. It must have taken off from the ground - unless it had a helping hand.  I don't think so though - there were very few people there and no-one else went that far up the beach.

We escaped the gloom and drizzle of the west coast and drove east. A walk along the sandy beach at Cromarty with the sun sparkling on the sea was pleasant, but it brought no birds. Udale Bay was noteworthy for a juvenile peregrine feeding on something unseen which a hooded crow was trying to share, and for six whooper swans flying up the firth and disappearing over farmland.